Lyle, Lyle Crocodile

Tried to go to the beach here in La Manzanilla the other day but alas…there were 2 crocodiles in the bay. Rick and I were having a beer, Lyle runs into the water and 5 secs later a fireman is running toward him waving his arms yelling, “get out of the water,” a little unnerving to say the least. Images of Jaws flashed in my mind as I catapulted out of my chair and ran toward the water screaming “Lyle get out of the water.” He couldn’t hear me but he must have been able to tell by my face that something was wrong and he quickly scurried out. The crocodiles were nowhere near our location, but so much better safe than…well you know.

The rains have filled the lagoon and it’s spilling into the bay with an occasional croc going as well. The locals say it happens most summers and when the water goes back down in the lagoon so do the crocs. If one of the crocs gets to be a nuisance then the fishermen take a boat out, lasso the beast and drag him back into the lagoon.

There is a viewing platform at the end of town where you can view the crocs and if you want buy fish and toss it to them. Locals swear the only bad human/croc encounter happened when a tourists was feeding the crocs some fish, got too close and lost his hand. Because the crocodiles here are protected there are a lot of them, probably close to 300, I sure hope as the numbers of crocs as well as the number of humans increases our luck holds and nothing tragic happens...but I think it’s just wishful thinking.